Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* the retailer Brian Hibbs looks at Marvel's Marvelman announcement and decides a) it doesn't seem to automatically include the material anyone's interested in, and b) the material that people are interested in doesn't really hold up 25 years later the way people think it might.

* there is still a lot of cheap art left for sale from Giant Robot New York's Dime Bag 3 show, including (as I post this) this piece by Ray Fenwick.

* our own David Welsh warns that the recent PW interview with David Small should come with a spoiler warning.

* happy 85th birthday (one day late), Annie.

* a very fine Dan Clowes interview has either re-surfaced or appeared, no one seems able to tell.

* I'm not sure how I go there but here are photos of people making giant Corto Maltese wall art.

* Jeff Smith writes a summer travelogue, stuffed with photos.

* finally, a not very good editorial by the usually reliable Steven Grant on comics publishers at San Diego here. I sympathize with the thrust of what he seems to be saying, which is that CCI is a different beast now that can no longer be marketed to in a fans marketing to other fans way and that it's the industry that's changed, not the show. I'm not with him on the details, though.

Some of what he says is flat wrong or severely misapplied. 1) Eric Reynolds has gone out of his way to emphasize Fantagraphics is not throwing in the towel. 2) Most of the comics publisher booths have changed a great deal since '99 -- as much as booths can conceivably change. I can think of a dozen examples. 3) Many of those changes reflect strategies designed to better pursue the business one can do at a CCI, something Steven asserts the publishers have failed to do. 4) Companies like D&Q and Fantagraphics and NBM have grown their overall audiences since '94, not seen them shrink, so they shouldn't suffer from their not being enough fans overall since the '94 implosion. 5) Steven blows off two very specific complaints out there -- that the pattern of ticket buying penalizes art-comics readers and that book distributors and retailers no longer buy product from publishers on the floor -- in a way that flatters his arguments.

Much of the rest of it seems ungenerous to me. San Diego has changed greatly in recent years. It's changed enough in recent years that publishers on the floor less than five years bent my ear on how different it was and how they were planning to adapt. CCI's context as one show among many has also changed: there are new New York and Chicago shows in addition to BEA and library shows and a growing number of arts festivals. I suspect publishers will reorient themselves with what CCI is now in a matter-of-fact, modest way, and this will involve more than grumping after folks to be more professional. In fact, the complaints Steven criticizes are exactly what he should be calling for -- out-loud realizations from key figures that changes need to be considered.

I also don't buy that CCI is in some post-fannish mode. That's not BEA and that's certainly not a health care products convention, not the four-day fan wallow I just saw. There's a lot more costumes, a lot more kids sleeping outside, and a lot more freaking out over personalities and freebies. This doesn't indicate a move past CCI's fannish roots. I'd suggest it points to a greater embrace of fandom overall. That makes things tricky for comics professionals. We only have Steven's word for it that there are these people roaming around the convention floor who would love a Locas book if only it were sold to them by a real sales professional acting professionally, or that whatever salty shenanigans Darkseid has going on today is as exhausted to the people that go to these events as they might be to Steven and his dinner companions. It seems to me Steven has it exactly reversed. I feel that there are more professional, effective marketers in comics than ever and that there are a lot more fans of whatever at CCI than post-fan consumers. When the people that have been selling Locas comics for 28 years say it's increasingly not their crowd, and that this may be the case for X, Y and Z reason, I believe them more than I believe Steven Grant.

It's a new era. New strategies are indeed in order, in and out of conventions. I expect the pros involved to take their best shot. I predict we'll see more tightly focused exhibition/sales efforts, more BEA-type giveaway/outreach endeavors, more creative programming. Comics people have always been methodical in reacting to CCI, but they have made changes. Even the people who have left the show behind did so after coming to a firm decision about how effective the show can be for what it is they do: not very! Chris Pitzer of AdHouse says he had his best CCI ever by not exhibiting. Should he have dug in and gone after those wandering Locas buyers by making a slick presentation video for Skyscrapers of the Midwest? I doubt it. Chris is the best judge of his own time, and he had no complaints. Other publishers may make a similar decision -- and who's to say they're wrong? Those that remain will adjust and try to find a better place for themselves and their books. That may mean a massive change in orientation, or it may simply mean doing what they do in a more effective way. Likely it will mean a mix of strategies and outcomes. Fans complain and then get back in line, keep watching, keep buying that comic. Companies serving readers including fans of all stripes complain and then set about doing something about it. I bet we'll see more of the latter than the former, and I bet it's already started.
 
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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